Not everyone thinks gentrification is a good thing:
Politicians in Berlinhave launched a campaign to rescue the city’s legendary nightclub scene from the spectre of property investors in the hope of salvaging the capital’s reputation as one of Europe’s party hotspots.
A ‘Music Board’ fund of around €1m (£835,000) has been set up to help protect the city’s shrinking club scene, which has been a mainstay of the economy since the fall of the Berlin Wall but has found itself increasingly squeezed out by real estate investors.
Berlin’s clubs have even coined the word ‘clubsterben’ – literally, ‘club death’ – to describe the phenomenon. The €1m fund will be used to help stricken clubs find new locations and hold fundraising concerts.
Around 15 clubs are currently under threat of closure according to Spiegel, while three prominent clubs have closed within the last few months. The nightspots, which are often housed in grungy urban buildings, breweries, or former factories situated on prime land, are increasingly being converted into apartment blocks and loft homes.
Here is more. Here is an article on whether Berlin can afford its billion dollar arts subsidy programs. This sentence is interesting:
Since German reunification in 1990, the capital has seen about half of its population leave and be replaced by newcomers.
For both pointers I thank www.artsjournal.com.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T MAKE ENOUGH BABIES.
It just requires that people spend more of their lives childless, not necessarily whether they have fewer children – if women on average had 3 kids, but lived to 90, you’d still see a lot of gentrification.
The accurate translation of “Clubsterben” would be “clubs dying”, not “club death”.
The figure of half of Berlin’s population leaving has to be taken with a pinch of salt.
West Berlin was an island in East Germany until 1989, surrounded by a wall and minefields. After 1989, West Berliners for the first time could move into the surrounding suburbs and countryside. They may live outside the city limits but still work in Berlin.
The problem with Berlin seems that there are no ( real ) jobs around. Don’t know how they will solve that. Its a great city, though.
They should try sponsoring the moshpits.
You ever been in one of the dark rooms at Berghain???
yes
Given that it’s Germany, it is appropriate that the clubs are sausage parties.
Wonder what the internal migrations of population have been since the fall of the Wall? Seems like a fine set of natural experiments.
Raise cover charges = Problem solved?
How much if that population loss is simply movement to exurbs now that Berlin is no longer artificially constrained by the Wall?
Looking narrowly at the issue nightclubs dying due to gentrification, this already actually happened in New York. What nightclubs that remain in New York essentially cater to people from New Jersey. Yes, it “only” really affects single people in their 20s and 30s, but I think the city is poorer as a result.
Looking at the really big picture, late twentieth century nightlife was really only a late twentieth century phenomenon. People had other means to entertain themselves at night and find mates. There were centuries where you wouldn’t even have restaurants in a city; anything social took place at home, arranged by your extended family. I prefer a more public oriented city life but in the long view there is a cyclical component to this.
This history reminds me of Fatih Akin’s hilarious “Soul Kitchen” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244668/), though the movie takes place in Hamburg.
Really Ed- “There were centuries where you wouldn’t even have restaurants in a city; anything social took place at home”
No inns , brothels, operas,bear fights etc
“Since German reunification in 1990, the capital has seen about half of its population leave and be replaced by newcomers.”
So 22 years on, half the people are still there? For such a “young people” city, that actually seems quite a high retention rate. I wonder if American cities like San Francisco have a higher turnover. And BTW, San Francisco has also lost a lot of great hangouts to gentrification. It’s just not typically seen as a concern for the government. In this way, Germans are different, I guess. I remember seeing a newspaper in Munich publish an article in which city officials expressed concern at the shrinking number of naked people hanging around in the English Garden (sort of their Central Park). Maybe they should offer a “Munich tradition” stipend!
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